Antennas to Heaven – The Line Between Myth and Reality Has Always Been In Finland

With their album The Line Between Myth and Reality Has Always Been In Finland, Antennas to Heaven fail to create a compelling post-rock sound scape using spoken word instead of singing. The band is composed of vocalist/musician David Smith and lyric writer Phil Hodgson, two English guys naively satisfied with the sound they make; their mistake was assuming that someone else wanted to hear it, too. The music comes off as amateurish; further attempts like this will guarantee that Antennas to Heaven go unrecognized in this or any other time in history.

The album sounds numb and uninspired; the music occasionally builds to fruitless ends, but most often it plods along as if filling in space around Smith’s reedy voice. The lyrics, presumably meant to carry the listener through the album, sound more like the boring ramblings of a depressed, artsy youth sleep talking his trains of thought into a tape recorder. And it’s not as compelling as it sounds – take my word for it.

The mix is flavorless. But never mind, what you hear will disappoint anyway. The guitar is limp; the beats hollow, often awkwardly executed; this little engine occasionally gets some momentum coasting downhill, but she never picks up steam.

Even as background music, the disc comes in second to television or, better yet, silence.

To my knowledge there is no audience for this. A person who works and leaves their dog alone in the apartment everyday might turn this disc on when they go. But truthfully, the abandoned dog’s barking would have more feeling.